Multilateral poverty: Approach and application in Vietnam reality

Abstract

In the previous studies on poverty, the method of evaluation and measurement of poverty was still based on income and expenditure indicators; normative poverty was defined on expenditure for the basic needs of human. In reality, this unilateral based-on-income approach is not adequate to multilaterality of poverty, because there are the poverty dimensions that couldn’t be measured by income or expenditure. Therefore, application of multilateral approach will overcome the weak points of the old approach, at the same time will satisfy the needs for aid of the poors and the near poors. This change of approach from unilateral to multilateral approach to measuring poverty will facilitate to recognize more exactly the poors, satisfying various basic social needs. This is the important basis for making policies of durable poverty reduction, step by step reducing the insufficience among regions and population groups, and enhancing the efficiency of aid policies. The article refers to some concepts, approach and indexes of poverty measure by multilateral approach.